Effective Measure (EM) have released the much anticipated EM e-Commerce Industry Report 2016, sponsored by Visa. The report focuses on those who shop online as well as those who don’t and the motivating reasons behind both decisions.

South Africans have shown a growing confidence in e-commerce with a notable 56% of the respondents indicating that they have shopped online between December 2015 and March 2016.

Consumers felt most comfortable doing their first online payment with bill payment merchants, while automobile merchants may need to polish up their e-commerce skills as they ranked lowest with only 7% of consumers feeling comfortable making their first online purchase with them. Marketers can take note of what South African online shoppers look for before making a purchase. 41% of the 12 000 respondents indicated that the overriding assurance they look for when shopping online is guaranteed returns and 59% say that an “on delivery” payment option would motivate them to purchase online more often.

With the increasing availability of online shopping in South Africa, the report reveals that consumers have most enjoyed purchasing these top five commodities:

1. Books

2. Tickets for events

3. Travel tickets

4. Hotel reservations

5. DVDs, videos, or music

The report also sheds light on topics such as – who the decision makers are, shopping frequency, payment preferences and delivery charges. It provides valuable insights into what consumers look for when choosing to purchase online and the reasons they choose not to follow through with a purchase. The report uncovers reasons why young SA consumers choose not to shop online. This is largely due to the fact that they do not have access to credit facilities.

When it comes to delivery time, the report reveals that delivery within 5 working days is most common and South African online consumers are largely content with this. 58% marked satisfaction.

“Understanding the digital consumer, their behaviour and barriers to entry is increasingly a focus for many businesses. Whether they are a retailer building e-commerce competency or media owner implementing paid for content strategies, the challenge remains the same. How do they effectively reach the right consumer, increase the propensity to purchase and increase the basket size. Consumers wallets are under pressure, this report aims to provide insight on how e-commerce can provide a clever solution to solve a real business challenge,” said Nicolle Harding, Country Manager, Effective Measure South Africa.

When it comes to paying for goods online, card payments are preferable with 58% of respondents indicating that they prefer to pay with a card and 23% would rather pay on delivery.

Said Geraldine Mitchley, Head of Emerging Products and Innovation for Visa in Sub Saharan Africa: “At Visa we are opening up the payment environment to make paying online easier. For more convenience Visa debit cards can now be used to pay online over and above Visa credit cards.

We are also working on taking the friction out of paying for goods. With Visa Checkout we are offering an easy and secure way to pay online. Enrolling in Visa Checkout is intuitive and simple, and shoppers can use any Visa debit or credit card or even other branded cards to make purchases from a PC or mobile device.”

“Visa Checkout is how we’ve reengineered the card that people already know and love to work as well online and on mobile devices as it does today in physical stores. We are currently working with a number of online merchants to bring the benefits of Visa Checkout to online shoppers,” concluded Mitchley.

Other key insights from the EM e-Commerce Industry Report include:

– 50% of online shoppers in South Africa have a household income of R20 000+ with over 60% working full-time jobs.

– 57% of SA online shoppers are either in a relationship or married.

– While card payments are preferable shoppers indicated that they would make use of cards more frequently if purchase discounts are offered as incentives.

– The four main reasons users enjoy shopping online include time saving, product review access, special offers and price comparisons.

“This year we changed things up, by introducing a comparison between EM digital respondents and AMPS respondents, supplying an additional layer of insight and value to the research conducted,” adds Harding.